Apple Carrot Muffins aka Sunshine Muffins

These Apple Carrot Muffins (also known as Sunshine Muffins) are full of carrots, apples, coconut, cinnamon & nutmeg. Your house will smell amazing after baking a batch of them!

These Carrot Apple Muffins are the best muffins to wake up to, hence their nickname “Sunshine Muffins”! They’re soft and full of delicious flavor. They’re one of my favorite muffin recipes. This recipe originally came from my sister, Nicole, but I’ve been making it for my family for years. It’s one of those recipes that everyone loves!

We go through a LOT of cereal at my house. I try to buy the better-for-you cereals but they end up sitting in the cupboard, uneaten, for weeks. What my kids really like are the super sweet kinds that are void of any real nutrition and full of artificial flavors and sweeteners. They can eat bowl after bowl and be hungry again less than an hour later!

Instead, I’ll whip up a batch of these muffins for breakfast and my kids with devour them! They taste so sinfully good. They’re super moist from the grated carrots and apples and have a yummy, spicy flavor from the nutmeg and cinnamon. It’s a sneaky (but awesome) way to get my kids to eat carrots and apples (without bribery) and keep them full longer. Plus it helps keep my cereal shelf full longer, too. 😉

And if you’re thinking, “no way can these taste good with carrot AND apple in them”, then let me set you straight. You’re dead wrong! Here’s why these Carrot Apple Muffins are one of my favorite:

The carrots and apples make these muffins incredibly moist and tender.

The addition of cinnamon and nutmeg in these muffins will have your house smelling like heaven, no joke! Seriously.

They freeze well and with a quick microwave thaw, taste like they’re fresh from the oven.

They’re practically a mom WIN because you’re getting a vegetable AND a fruit in a breakfast muffin. 😉

I made these last week when I had a few of my son’s friends over. Of course after I pulled them out of the oven, I got curious kids coming into the kitchen asking if they could try one. Mostly because the smell of apples, cinnamon and nutmeg went all through the house. These Sunshine Muffins are so easy to throw together for a quick breakfast. Whether you have kids or not, these muffins will be a hit at your breakfast table!

Apple Carrot Muffins aka Sunshine Muffins

Author: Jen Nikolaus

Recipe type: Breakfast

Serves: 12 muffins

Ingredients

2 cups flour

¾ cup sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

3 eggs

½ cup vegetable oil

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups grated carrots

1 cup apple, peeled and grated

½ cup chopped nuts, optional

¼ cup coconut, optional

coarse sugar, for topping, optional

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, eggs, oil and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Mix well with wooden spoon.

Fold in remaining ingredients: carrots, apple, nuts and coconut.

Scoop into 12 regular-sized greased muffin tins and sprinkle a little coarse sugar on top of each muffin.